SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating an alleged attempted-murder and have a suspect in custody.

At approximately 1 a.m. on January 6, police responded to an unknown call for EMS in the 2400 block of south Glendale in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.

Upon arrival, officers located a 21-year-old man who had sustained gunshot wounds to the upper body.  EMS transported the victim to an area hospital in serious condition. He remains hospitalized.

The investigation revealed the victim and 25-year-old Jeffrey Vermont Porter were in the parking lot of the Wildwood Apartments, 5001 E. Pawnee in Wichita.  While at this location, Porter fired multiple shots from a handgun, striking the victim.  The victim was able to run to a nearby residence and ask for help.

On Monday, police  located Porter in Riley County where he was arrested.  His is being held on requested charges of Murder in the 1st degree; Intentional and premeditated and a Bond $250,000.

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RILEY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating an alleged attempted-homicide and have a suspect in custody.

Just before 9a.m. Monday, the Riley County Police Department, in coordination with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office and the Wichita Police Department, responded to 200 Tuttle Creek Blvd in Manhattan, according to a media release.

Authorities arrested without incident Jeffrey Vermont Porter, Jr, 25, of Wilsey, KS, on a $250,000 Sedgwick County warrant for attempted homicide and a no bond Harvey County warrant for probation violation.

Authorities will present the case to the Sedgwick County attorney. Porter’s first appearance in court is expected later this week.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Authorities have rescued a doe that was found trapped in a storm drain in suburban Kansas City.

Police in Olathe said in a Facebook post that someone stumbled across the animal Saturday while walking a dog. The post described the doe as “very agitated and in distress.” The department estimated that it had been in the hole for about a week.

A video shows an animal control officer reaching a long pole with a loop on the end into the open manhole and pulling out the doe. After emerging, the doe bounds into a wooded area. The officer then told the county that the manhole needs fixing.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge is refusing to again delay the trial of Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell after plea negotiations broke down.

U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren on Monday noted O’Donnell’s trial had already been postponed four times.

The judge chided co-defense attorney Joshua Ney for not attending the status conference where the date was set and then waiting until two weeks before trial to ask for another continuance.

Ney cited in a motion last week his heavy workload, telling the court that plea negotiations stalled on Feb. 4.

The government has accused O’Donnell of fraudulently obtaining $10,500 from his campaign accounts for his personal use. An indictment charges him with 23 counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering.

A five-day trial is set to begin Feb. 25.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional negotiators reached agreement to prevent a government shutdown and finance construction of new barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, overcoming a late-stage hang-up over immigration enforcement issues that had threatened to scuttle the talks.

Republicans were desperate to avoid another bruising shutdown. They tentatively agreed Monday night to far less money for President Donald Trump’s border wall than the White House’s $5.7 billion wish list, settling for a figure of nearly $1.4 billion, according to congressional aides. The funding measure is through the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The agreement means 55 miles of new fencing — constructed through existing designs such as metal slats instead of a concrete wall — but far less than the 215 miles the White House demanded in December. The fencing would be built in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

“With the government being shut down, the specter of another shutdown this close, what brought us back together I thought tonight was we didn’t want that to happen” again, said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

Details won’t be officially released until Tuesday, but the pact came in time to alleviate any threat of a second partial government shutdown this weekend. Aides revealed the details under condition of anonymity because the agreement is tentative.

“Our staffs are just working out the details,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

The pact also includes increases for new technologies such as advanced screening at border entry points, humanitarian aid sought by Democrats, and additional customs officers.

This weekend, Shelby pulled the plug on the talks over Democratic demands to limit immigrant detentions by federal authorities, frustrating some of his fellow negotiators, but Democrats yielded ground on that issue in a fresh round of talks on Monday.

Asked if Trump would back the deal, Shelby said: “We believe from our dealings with them and the latitude they’ve given us, they will support it. We certainly hope so.”

Trump traveled to El Paso, Texas, for a campaign-style rally Monday night focused on immigration and border issues. He has been adamant that Congress approve money for a wall along the Mexican border, though he no longer repeats his 2016 mantra that Mexico will pay for it, and he took to the stage as lawmakers back in Washington were announcing their breakthrough.

“They said that progress is being made with this committee,” Trump told his audience, referring to the congressional bargainers. “Just so you know, we’re building the wall anyway.”

Democrats carried more leverage into the talks after besting Trump on the 35-day shutdown but showed flexibility in hopes on winning Trump’s signature. After yielding on border barriers, Democrats focused on reducing funding for detention beds to curb what they see as unnecessarily harsh enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The agreement yielded curbed funding, overall, for ICE detention beds, which Democrats promised would mean the agency would hold fewer detainees than the roughly 49,000 detainees held on Feb. 10, the most recent date for which figures were available. Democrats claimed the number of beds would be ratcheted down to 40,520.

But a proposal to cap at 16,500 the number of detainees caught in areas away from the border — a limit Democrats say was aimed at preventing overreach by the agency — ran into its own Republican wall.

Democrats dropped the demand in the Monday round of talks, and the mood in the Capitol improved markedly.

Trump met Monday afternoon with top advisers in the Oval Office to discuss the negotiations. He softened his rhetoric on the wall but ratcheted it up when alluding to the detention beds issue.

“We can call it anything. We’ll call it barriers, we’ll call it whatever they want,” Trump said. “But now it turns out not only don’t they want to give us money for a wall, they don’t want to give us the space to detain murderers, criminals, drug dealers, human smugglers.”

The recent shutdown left more than 800,000 government workers without paychecks, forced postponement of the State of the Union address and sent Trump’s poll numbers tumbling. As support in his own party began to splinter, Trump surrendered after the shutdown hit 35 days, agreeing to the current temporary reopening without getting money for the wall.

The president’s supporters have suggested that Trump could use executive powers to divert money from the federal budget for wall construction, though he could face challenges in Congress or the courts.

The negotiations hit a rough patch Sunday amid a dispute over curbing ICE, the federal agency that Republicans see as an emblem of tough immigration policies and Democrats accuse of often going too far.

According to ICE figures, 66 percent of the nearly 159,000 immigrants it reported detaining last year were previously convicted of crimes. Reflecting the two administration’s differing priorities, in 2016 under President Barack Obama, around 110,000 immigrants were detained and 86 percent had criminal records.

Few convictions that immigrants detained last year had on their records were for violent crimes. The most common were for driving while intoxicated, drugs, previous immigration convictions and traffic offenses.

The border debate got most of the attention, but it’s just part of a major spending measure to fund a bevy of Cabinet departments. A collapse of the negotiations would have imperiled another upcoming round of budget talks that are required to prevent steep spending cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies.

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SALINE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on drug distribution charges.

Just after 10:30p.m. Sunday, emergency crews were dispatched to the 2500 Block of South Ohio in Salina for a person in medical distress, according to Police Detective Sergeant David Villanueva. Preliminary indications were that the woman was overdosing on an opiate.

Investigators determined  that Johnathan Scott Richardson, 30, Abilene, had injected the woman with heroin. The injection was consensual, Villanueva said. When she began to crash, Richardson called 911.

Paramedics were able to revive the woman, who was then taken to the hospital for further treatment.

Police arrested Richardson on requested charges of distributing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school, possession of opiates, and endangerment

 

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas attorney eying a possible run for U.S. Senate has been arrested for driving with a suspended license.

Democrat James Thompson was arrested on Jan. 27 in Greenwood County.

The Wichita attorney has run twice for the south-central Kansas congressional seat once held by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Thompson is weighing a 2020 campaign to replace retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts.

Thompson says his license was suspended in January because of a speeding ticket he failed to pay in Sedgwick County. He said he didn’t realize it had been suspended when he went on a hunting trip.

He was pulled over for speeding and arrested for driving while suspended.

Thompson says his license was reinstated after he paid the Sedgwick County fine.

TOPEKA —Legislation requested Monday by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt would prevent state judges from lowering prison sentences for adult sex offenders because a child victim was an “aggressor” who contributed to the crime.

According to a media release from the Attorney General, current law allows judges to reduce the length of prison sentences – or “depart” downward from statutory sentence guidelines — by finding that the victim of certain crimes contributed to the criminal conduct by being an “aggressor.” The proposed bill would make that reason for downward departure unavailable in sex crimes when the victim is younger than 14 years and the offender is an adult. It also would make departure unavailable when human trafficking victims are involved regardless of their age.

“No matter the child’s behavior, child victims are not responsible for the criminal conduct of adults who commit sex crimes against them,” Schmidt said. “In my view, the law should reflect that simple principle.”

Schmidt said the legislation was motivated by a recent decision by a Leavenworth County judge, who reduced the sentence imposed on 67-year-old Raymond Soden who was convicted of committing a sex crime against a 13-year-old girl. The reduction was based on the judge’s finding that the child victim was an “aggressor” in the crime.

Leavenworth County Attorney Todd Thompson said he disagreed with the reduced sentence but did not appeal the decision because he concluded the judge had acted within the discretion allowed by current law. Thompson said he supports the proposed new legislation.

“We are grateful to Attorney General Schmidt in recognizing this flaw in the law and working with us to immediately take action to fix it,” Thompson said. “When appealing a case we must remove the emotional component and focus solely on the legal argument. In this case we do not have the legal argument.”

The legislation was requested Monday in the House Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — A Missouri jail nurse who allegedly wanted to marry a man convicted of killing a lottery winner has been charged with poisoning her husband and setting their home on fire, according to court records.

Amy Murray, 40, is facing charges including first-degree murder and arson in the Dec. 11 death of her husband, Joshua Murray. Investigators said he was found dead in the master bedroom of the couple’s burned-out home in Iberia, and that his wife later told the prison inmate in a recorded phone call that they could get married because her husband was “out of the picture.”

An autopsy determined her husband was poisoned by a chemical in antifreeze and likely died before the blaze started.

Amy Murray remained jailed Monday on a $750,000 bond. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a phone message Monday seeking comment from The Associated Press.

Murray reported finding the home ablaze when she returned from taking the couple’s 11-year-old son and two dogs to a McDonald’s, a Miller County sheriff’s detective wrote in a probable cause statement released last week. She told investigators she couldn’t get inside the home because the house was filled with smoke.

But investigators said they found a McDonald’s sandwich on the kitchen counter at the house in Iberia, which is about 140 miles southeast of Kansas City.

Murray worked part-time as a nurse at the Jefferson City Correctional Facility, where she had a “romantic relationship” with inmate Eugene Claypool that had been ongoing “for some time,” according to authorities and charging documents. Claypool, who isn’t charged in the case, was sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing an elderly man in 2000.

In recorded phone calls at the facility, Murray told Claypool she wanted to divorce her husband. Following the fire, she allegedly told Claypool they could get married because her husband was dead and “out of the picture,” according to court documents. She and Claypool also discussed getting an attorney so Claypool could be released from prison early.

Claypool and another man pleaded guilty to killing 72-year-old Donald Hardwick, who was attacked in his home on Christmas Day in 2000. Hardwick, who couldn’t walk without using a walker, won a $1.7 million Missouri Lottery jackpot in 1998. Investigators said Claypool and his co-defendant targeted Hardwick believing he had $10,000 stashed in his Springfield home.

Investigators said Claypool repeatedly stabbed Hardwick, whose wife later found him dead with a Bible on his chest.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The alleged ringleader of a foiled plot to massacre Somali Muslims in southwest Kansas is appealing his conviction and prison sentence.

The attorney representing Patrick Stein on Monday filed a notice of appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Stein was among three militia members convicted of plotting in 2016 to blow up a mosque and apartments housing Somalis in Garden City.

A judge last month sentenced Stein to 30 years in prison for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. The sentences will run concurrently.

Stein will return to federal court on Feb. 22 for a change-of-plea hearing and sentencing in a separate indictment alleging possession of child pornography. The material was discovered during searches in the bomb case.

SEDGWICK COUNTY — One person was injured after a fire at a Kansas hotel.

On Sunday, fire crews responded to the Best Western Hotel in the 4700 Block of South Emporia in Wichita, according to Lt. Jose Ocadiz.

First crews at the scene found and a man hanging from a third-story hotel window and smoke coming from the room.

Crews and the hotel sprinkler system were able to contain the fire to the room of origin.
The man was transported for treatment of injuries primarily due to the fall, according to Ocadiz.

The cause remains under investigation but is believed to have been intentionally set due to some tampering with the sprinkler system, according to Ocadiz.

Most of the $100,000 in damage at the hotel was from the sprinkler system. Damage to contents was estimated at $25,000.   Authorities have not released the man’s name.

By STEPHEN KORANDA
Kansas News Service

Republican leaders in the Kansas Senate are forging ahead with plans to plow millions into tax relief that would largely benefit big business. Some Democrats and more moderate Republicans suspect it’s also a strategy to deprive the governor of the money to fund her priorities.

Carving out chunks of the state savings account now could send lawmakers scrambling to fund schools and other services with the cash that’s left when they’re knitting up the budget later this spring.

“When we get to the end of session, then we are stuck,” Democratic Rep. Cindy Holscher said.

Republicans say there’s urgency to tackling tax relief, and that the state can afford it.

The year started with a financial picture rosier than many forecasts in recent memory. After lawmakers in 2017 reversed the tax cuts then Gov. Sam Brownback had pushed for in 2012, Kansas has seen tax collections rebound. A revenue estimatefrom November showed the state would have $900 million in the bank at the end of the current fiscal year.

But, a bad monthly revenue report for January prompted Gov. Laura Kelly to reiterate her feeling that the state needs to be picky about what it spends money on.

“We must make wise, financial prudent choices to ensure the future is bright for our children,” Kelly said in a statement.

The governor said she favors investments in schools, roads, and fixing what she points to as the “damage done” during the Brownback years.

The Senate on Thursday approved a tax relief bill that the state department of revenue estimates would cost more than $400 million over three years. That includes around $190 million this year, cutting into that projected ending balance.

Democrats in the Senate, who all voted against the bill, said the state can’t give up the revenue while staring down a Kansas Supreme Court order to adequately fund schools.

“We can’t afford this unless we do something drastic to our budget,” Democratic Sen. Tom Holland said as a committee worked on the bill before it went to the full chamber. “We have to fund our schools.”

Sen. John Skubal was one of two Republicans who joined the Democrats in voting “no.” He criticized the bill for focusing too much on corporations.

“They have had tax breaks long enough,” Skubal said after the vote. “I think we need more money right now to take care of the core functions of government.”

Republican Senate President Susan Wagle said lawmakers don’t have to choose between tax relief and funding schools.

She calls the money in question a “windfall” — an unexpected boon to the state resulting from changes to the federal tax code.

“If we don’t pass this bill,” Wagle said during committee work on the plan, “Kansas individuals, families and businesses will all have a tax increase this year.

If lawmakers do nothing, the federal tax cuts passed in 2017 could result in some corporations owing more state taxes on foreign income and some individual Kansans would owe more because they would no longer be able to take itemized deductions.

Wagle said concerns about the cost of acting to let Kansas taxpayers keep that money may be overblown because staff aren’t fully confident in their estimate of the fiscal impact.

“It’s a shot in the dark,” she said.

The Senate president and other Republicans argue too that not providing the tax relief could be detrimental to Kansas if it prompts large companies to leave the state.

“Then we’re going to lose a bunch of jobs,” Sen. Julia Lynn said. “That’s my issue, pure and simple.”

Some lawmakers expect Kelly would veto the bill should it pass the House and make it to her desk. The governor has voiced strong opposition.

“I can’t imagine why anybody who was here in 2012 and lived through the Brownback tax cuts and the experiment would even consider voting for that bill,” Kelly told reporters. “It is a redo.”

At the same time Republicans are pursuing  tax relief, they’re also showing little interest in a Kelly’s idea to give the state more spending flexibility.

The governor has proposed refinancing the debt of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. Her proposal would stretch out the payoff schedule. That would lower the annual payments and free up money for other priorities, such as education or expanding health coverage through the state’s Medicaid program.

But ultimately it would add billions of dollars to the state’s pension liabilities.

“This whole budget is built on a house of cards,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning said of the proposal last month.

Since then, opinions from Republican leaders haven’t improved. The chairman of the House pension committee, Steven Johnson, believes the plan is likely dead in the water for this session.

Democrats agreed to spend $115 million to make up for a missed payment to KPERS. That legislation, passed with a unanimous vote in the Senate, is heading to the House.

The governor said Kansas can afford that payment now, but insists the state has to refinance its pension debt to keep the payoff schedule manageable in the long term.

“It really is a fiscally sound thing to do,” Kelly said.

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.

BARTON COUNTY — Authorities in Barton County have responded to several fires since Friday and all of them were heating related, according to Sheriff Brian Bellendir.

The most serious of these fires occurred at about 11:30 p.m. Feb. 10. Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to 789 E. Kansas Highway 4 near Claflin. Upon arrival, firefighters and deputies discovered a house fully involved in flames.

Investigation at the scene indicated that the house was not occupied at the time of the fire but, the tenants had been using wood burning equipment to keep the structure warm. The residence was a total loss.

Just after 11:30 a.m. Feb. 8, sheriff’s deputies responded to a structure fire at 672 Barton Ave. south of Hoisington and another just after 5 p.m. on Feb. 9, at 11 NE. 30th Road, just north of the city of Great Bend.

Both of these fires caused substantial damage to the residences and were heating related, according to Bellendir. Authorities reported no injuries.